Ten Words
by ProTempore
Summary: Ten drabbles.
1. Involuntarily

Involuntarily)  
His hair is a discolored white. His skin a unnatural pale. His hands fumble with _my_ shirt and I try and figure out how we got into _this_ position. This spot. I try not to panic. We're shoved into a small compartment (if it would be called that). It's the closest in Mao's third bedroom. The one that has the extra comforter for my bed in it. It's now on the floor. Dropped in between all of _this_.

"You ok?" he says it all breathy like, his lips still on my neck.

For a moment I catch his eyes. His fingers play with the latch down _there_ and I involuntarily flinch. I must've looked to be a deer in _his_ headlights.

He doesn't wait for my response. My "yes" or "no" or even one of my smart-ass remarks I'm known to throw out.

He must've liked it because he was smiling pretty wide. Vicious is crazy. Vicious will certainly be the death of me. He's asking "You ok?" as more of a dare than anything. He's beckoning me to say no. Asking me to. He knows I can't not take a dare.

I try to say something but it comes out choked. Muffled. He chuckles. "Maybe when you grow up kid," he ruffles my puffy hair, flashing a white smile. His smile is eerily amazing. He says this condescendingly. Because out of the both of us _he's_ the only person to know what's going on here.

"You and Spike ready to eat?" I hear Annie outside requesting us both and I wonder how I'll sit across from him at dinner.

"Yeah," he's still smiling, "I was just helping him with something,"

I pick up the comforter of the ground and throw it on my bed, following behind Vicious.

The words are still playing in my mind. His hands soooo...close...

"_Maybe when you grow up kid..."_

_an. hehe...Vicious and Spike. Never saw myself writing that one. Review please. _


	2. Enigma

Enigma)  
_Under the weight of your wings.  
__You are a god and whatever I want you to be.  
__And I wonder if truly you are, nearly as beautiful as I believe._

"You can't come in Spike," she crossed her arms. He crossed his legs, leaning against the door frame. She backed away when he got too near to her face.

"You didn't say that last night,"

His hands became close enough to her face to make her turn around. Pull away.

"You've been drinking," she said it like she wasn't expecting it. Like they didn't drink all the time. Like she didn't drink with them. The syndicate life, "can I talk to you Julia?" he pressed into her, probably because he could barely stand up right-up himself.

Julia, although she shouldn't have, although she wanted to let him fall flat on his face, caught him.

She pulled the robe she wore tighter, after laying him back on the couch.

His face was somewhat flushed, sweat beginning to work it's way across his forehead. He was like a child. Or a teenager, maybe, after his first night out drinking.

To Julia, he was an enigma. Spike knew how to hold his liquor. He knew exactly how much to drink and he definitely knew the true meaning of a "charming drunk". So maybe he wasn't as drunk as he would like to be. Maybe he wished he could fall away and never wake up. Wake up with a headache and with short-term memory loss.

She knew what he was working to forget.

The hardest part is that when she sat down next to him, using the cold washcloth she had fetched to wipe away his warmness, she knew the only thing he _really_ wanted to forget was her.

"You're so beautiful," his hands were warm against her skin yet it sent shivers down her spine, "what cha' thinking bout beautiful?" he seemed content enough.

Maybe, he wanted it this way. When it all came crashing down he wanted to know that he could blame it on the liquor.

She knew he didn't want her any other way.

If he had to remember anything he wanted to remember that it wasn't his fault. This was, of course, only if he _had_ to remember.

Yet, she rested her head on his chest, her hand falling away from the wash cloth still on his forehead to cup his cheek.

"That job tomorrow," he made a hmph noise and just as soon he was asleep.

Really what she thought of was the fact that the only thing he wanted to forget about was her in his arms. And she hugged tighter.


	3. Lady Lazarus

One._Lady Lazarus.  
__Dying  
__is an art, like everything else.  
__I do it exceptionally well.  
__I do it so it feels like hell.  
__I do it so it feels real.  
__I guess you could say I've a call. (Sylvia Plath- Lady Lazarus) _

"_It was raining that day as well . . . "_

"_You didn't come because of the rain?"_

Every end needs a beginning and vice-versa . . . and such. Yet every sun that rises needs to set. When people are of course close to the end, they revert backwards to the beginning. The primary skills. The ones that drove them from birth. The basic needs to survive. The ones that are still as solid as concrete when the flames of life peels back the outer layers. The protective barriers. Truth is, we are the pets we keep. The animals we scoff at. In a time of dire need and faced with a threat to our survival they are the skills built in.

Like dogs with raw meat, or something of the sort.

We show this in varying attitudes. Waves. Some emit hope even in the face of defeat. Spike, wasn't one to do so. He was the opposite. It probably resonated for his inept hopes and wishes that he would so die.

He was like a suicide patient. Attempted suicide patient, to be correct. Pulled out of a sack and stuck together with glue. You hear about them and instead of thinking "thank God they found them in time," instead you think, "man, sucks to be them ."

How ironic is it that your life would be falling so south and so fast that you would need to kill yourself to escape it, and that you would in turn fail? How pathetic, may be appropriate.

Spike was never one to leave without a bang. Of course he was mellowed out enough to know when to stop but it was like this tick. This thing inside telling him if he had to die he definitely had to take a hundred men with him. At least.

Julia. She was Spike's raw meat.

She made him go backwards in time before he learned how to pull a trigger correctly. The code of silence. She made him go back in time to what he was before. Before . . . well . . . everything.

The sun rise to his set.

Well Julia was also his beginning to his end.

His blonde haired, blue-eyed beginning to his hopeless end.

She was the beginning to Spike Spiegel. The real Spike Spiegel. Before the syndicate's temptations took hold and Vicious changed.

She was the beginning that mattered.

Started everything.

And in his end, he would revert back to her, and smile.

"_This is . . . a dream,"_

"_Yeah, just a bad dream,"_

**you're gonna carry that weight** . . .

An. The quotes are from the last episode. Real Folk Blues. Review.


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